Sunday, January 1, 2012

How To Slow Time

It rushes past, doesn't slow down for tragedies, nor for triumphs. The ever ticking of clock hands is the epitome of nightmare and presence of reality. Time continues even when life stops, when joy ceases. We race, but never catch up.
Time always outruns us.
As our final breath takes wing we wish for more.
More time? Or just more significance in the moments we are given?

Can we slow a moment, win the thumb war with time?
Organizing, planning, and rushing-stumbling in the race never seem to work. What will? What will slow the dizziness so that meaning can be seen in each tick-tock minute?

Wherever you are, be all there.

Jim Elliot, missionary, martyr, and striver after the abundant life, said that. Live in the moment. Which one? This one. This split second of God at work right before your eyes. He'll never reveal Himself just like this again. Don't miss it. It hangs by a thread, and is gone. But you can catch it.
By being here.
Now.

Stretch the sprint of the second hand into the leisurely walk of the minute hand. Inhale joy. Open your eyes to the miniscule, the invisible. Sun diving through marshmallow clouds. Sea like glass under crystal moon. Ecstasy of a sister over something you just can't understand. A friend's encouraging, challenging words, in the perfect moment.

Be here. See the unseen, made visible by thankfulness. Time screeches to a crawl when eyes open, minds stop running, beings be. How many joy-filled, grace-overflowing creaks of the clock have passed blind and broken eyes? Would we take more time to see if we knew that the sight of grace in the ordinary, joy in the mundane, transformation of the plain could mend the cracks that scar our souls?

Being where we are, seeing the now, and marveling at the here will introduce us to the One called I AM. He alone, unaffected by the mystery of mortal time, can heal its wounds. But to see Him, to know Him we must live now. All here.
We must be.
Still.

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